On Wednesday, July 29, Amer Jubran was sentenced by Jordan’s State Security Court along with 8 other defendants. The rest of the defendants were given sentences of 2-3 years; for his refusal to cooperate, he was singled out for excessive punishment, and given a 15 year sentence (reduced by his lawyers to 10 years). The verdict comes after 15 months in detention–the first 3 months without charges.
He was able to get a call out of the prison where he is being held in Jordan to make a statement about his trial and sentencing. An audio recording is available at the following link:
“Last Wednesday on July 29, 2015, I was issued a verdict of 15 years in prison which was reduced to 10 years later. This verdict was issued by a military court, a martial tribunal court made of three judges. The trial lasted for about 1 year and over thirty sessions, through which my legal defense team has proven beyond doubt false charges of terrorism. There were 10 charges and our defense amounted to zero effect on the outcome of that trial, as I was given a maximum punishment, while everybody else in the group were given 2-3 year sentences. It is clear that I am being targeted as a person, and such decisions had completely put aside law and justice and replaced that with politics and vengeance.
During the interrogation period, I was told by the GID that any decision made about me is involving (quote) ‘our American and Israeli friends’ (end-quote). All started when I refused to be a sell-out and work against the Lebanese resistance. I was told then that I will be sent behind the sun for such a refusal. And frankly it is very easy for me to disappear behind the sun rather than to be well outside but a sell-out and traitor.
Please use this information to spread to everyone among our activist media who are interested. Especially media that is pro-resistance in Lebanon. And anybody you think is worthy to take this information to. Also please tell my love and my respect to everybody who stood by me among our friends and brothers and sisters where you are. And I thank you deeply from my heart and please do not forget Palestine.”
***
In conversation, Amer further clarified that all 10 of the original charges were disproved by his defense team, but a new charge was manufactured at the time of the verdict. He also clarified that his refusal to be a “sell-out and work against the Lebanese resistance” was a refusal to work as an infiltrator and informant.
We are releasing this statement along with a call for activists to renew pressure on the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jordan’s Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein, demanding an independent review of Amer’s trial and the flagrant violations of human rights involved in his imprisonment. It is now 13 months since our initial open letter to the High Commissioner–an appeal that is still unanswered. (For the text of our letter, see: https://freeamer.wordpress.com/action-calls ).
It has been clear from the outset that Amer was targeted for his activism and political speech on behalf of Palestine. The lengthy proceedings before the State Security Court were a sham trial, before a court with no political independence, acting as a rubber-stamp for the GID (General Intelligence Directorate).
Amer’s statement confirms what many of us have suspected from the beginning: his arrest and detention–and now his sentencing to 10 years of imprisonment–have taken place in coordination with the US and Israel.
Please take the time to forward Amer’s statement. You can support justice for Amer by sending letters, faxes and e-mails over the next week (8/5/15-8/12/2015) addressed to Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein at the following address:
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: (41 22) 917 0008 (If faxing from US: 011-41-22-917-0008)
E-mail: registry@ohchr.org
And please cc the following:
Prime Minister and Defense Minister
Abdullah Ensour
Fax number 962-6-464-2520 (If faxing from US: 011-962-6-464-2520)
e-mail: info@pm.gov.jo
Open Letter to Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
email registry@ohchr.org
August 3, 2015
Dear UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein:
We wrote to you in July of 2014 to ask you to intervene in the case Amer Jubran of Jordan.* Mr. Jubran at that time had been detained for two months without charges, and you, at that time, were the UN High Commissioner-Elect. Now you occupy that office, and Mr. Jubran has been convicted. On July 29, 2015 he was sentenced by the Jordanian State Security Court, a military tribunal, to ten years in prison on charges of terrorism. These charges were proven false by Mr. Jubran’s defense team, but a decision was made against him nevertheless.
We saw no sign that you acted to intervene in this case in 2014. Perhaps if you had this sham trial would not have proceeded. But now that it has come to its predictable conclusion we ask you again to intervene to question why such a harsh sentence could be handed down without evidence of any crime. As High Commissioner for Human Rights we believe it is your responsibility to act to review this case. Amer Jubran is an internationally known activist, speaker, and writer on Palestinian human rights, and a critic of US and Israeli policies in the Arab world. These are the reasons he was targeted, not for terrorism. Though Jordan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the human rights violations of its General Intelligence Directorate and State Security Court are well known. This is a problem that, as a Jordanian and as Human Rights Commissioner, you have every reason to be concerned about. The unjust sentence against Amer Jubran should be overturned immediately.
Recently Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg sent a letter to the UN Security Council demanding that Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria end the use of barrel bombs. The foreign ministry of a European country that still maintains a diplomatic presence in Damascus, one of the few, asked for the opinion of its embassy on the matter. The embassy recommended to sign the letter: barrel bombs are indiscriminate and kill an awful lot of civilians. But the embassy also advised its government to condemn the opposition’s use of improvised mortar bombs (known as “hell cannons”) against the neighborhoods under government control. Diplomats say that the rebels have specifically targeted Christian areas for their perceived support for the Assad regime. Back in Europe, the foreign ministry officials admitted that they “haven’t heard anything” about the “hell cannons.”
This is only one example of how dysfunctional EU policy toward Syria has become, as a European Parliament (EP) delegation that visited Lebanon in mid-June learned. An early EU decision to cut off all ties with the Assad regime has not been vindicated by the developments on the ground. Not only has the regime survived, but radical jihadist elements have increasingly dominated the opposition to Assad. The EU, however, failed to modify its strategy accordingly. As a result, regional actors with often disruptive and sectarian agendas have taken center stage. And individual EU member states have also pursued their own policies, which are not necessarily in the interests of the EU as a whole.
The latest example of the distorting influence of the regional actors is the Syrian opposition’s failure to accept the “freeze plan” in Aleppo and surrounding areas proposed by the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan De Mistura as a first step toward a negotiated solution. In the UN assessment, the opposition´s foreign sponsors—mainly Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan—bear primary responsibility for this failure, because they have insisted on removing Assad from power as a pre-condition to any agreements.
Such a position is not new. What is new, however, is that these sponsors do not hide anymore that they work directly with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda´s affiliate in Syria. They still pretend, however, that al-Nusra is the face of the “moderate opposition,” even though this assertion stems from a PR operation, widely believed to be Qatari-driven and carried out in Western mainstream media and think-tanks. An interview al-Nusra’s chief Al-Golani gave to the Qatar-based Al Jazeera was part of this PR campaign, but it backfired when Al-Golani made it clear that al-Nusra is al-Qaeda and expressed borderline genocidal views on Alawites.
The Dangers of Supporting Jihad
To make matters more complicated, even those rebel groups that are not part of al-Nusra, espouse deeply troubling views. According to a credible UN source in Damascus, a fighter from an obscure group Jaysh al-Ababil active in Syria´s south, has reported that “Syrian people deserve a democracy like in Saudi Arabia.” He boasted that the group “gets anything it needs” from Jordan and that a major offensive to take Damascus from the south, as well as the north, will be launched “very soon.”
If the US and EU had real strategy to end the war they would, in addition to pressuring Assad, demand that their regional allies curb the flow of weapons and recruits to terrorist groups. But they can’t credibly do that, since they are involved in this effort themselves. According to Conflicts Forum, the southern rebel front is managed from US Centcom’s Forward Command in Jordan, which is run jointly by American, Jordanian, Saudi, Qatari, and British officers. … Full article
Ami Ayalon, the former chief of Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet, told Charlie Rose in a 2012 interview that Israel hoped to foster a ‘Sunni coalition’ led by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to assail Shia Muslims of the region led by Iran.
Ayalon told Rose that, “Iran is a huge threat. We cannot live with Iran having nuclear military power. We should not accept it.”
“How much time do we have and what do we do?” the Israeli spook asked.
“[We need to create] a kind of a Sunni coalition … with Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia… who understand that the major conflict is with Shia [Muslims] led by Iran.”
Interestingly, such a coalition has indeed formed in recent weeks with the Saudi-led bombing offensive in Yemen against the Iran-aligned Shia Houthi rebels who have seized power in the war-torn country.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and other Sunni-oriented dictatorships and Western-backed quisling regimes have formed a ‘coalition’ to stamp out the Shia rebellion in Yemen.
ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other extremist groups currently fighting to topple the Shia/Alawite Assad regime in Syria may also be considered part of this ‘Sunni coalition’ that Ayalon speaks of. The Wahhabi militants who have besieged Syria and who previously attacked Libya were and continue to be subsidized and supported by Washington’s regional puppets (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Turkey).
In a 2014 interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the US should strive to weaken both Sunnis and Shias by letting them fight each other.
In a 2013 interview with the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s former ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, revealed that Israel’s main goal was to break down the Shia alliance of Damascus, Tehran and the Lebanese Hezbollah by siding with the Wahhabist radicals of ISIS and al-Qaeda.
“The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran,” Oren said.
Reports of Israel aiding and abetting anti-Assad militants, including those of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, are abundant and well-founded.
Oren went on to remark with glee that the Gulf sheikhdoms have in recent years come to embrace Israel’s designs vis-a-vis Syria, Iran and even the Palestinian issue, saying:
In the last 64 years there has probably never been a greater confluence of interest between us and several Gulf States. With these Gulf States we have agreements on Syria, on Egypt, on the Palestinian issue. We certainly have agreements on Iran. This is one of those opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.
Ayalon’s admission confirms what many suspect is an Israeli-led divide and conquer strategy where Israel and the West are using Sunni and Wahhabi zealots, useful idiots, and sell-outs to do the bidding of the Zionist regime.
Cooperation between the Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence apparatuses exceeds all expectations, Israel’s Channel 10 stressed on Monday, noting that Cairo agrees with Tel Aviv’s requests pertaining to confronting “radical” Islamic movements in Sinai and the Gaza Strip.
In a report the channel’s military affairs broadcaster Alon Ben-David said that cooperation between the Egyptian and Israeli armies does not depend only on the coordination and sharing of intelligence information, but goes beyond this to field cooperation, in reference to the parties’ joint operations against those who are considered sources of danger for Israel and Egypt in Sinai.
Last year the Israeli TV station revealed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued instructions to carry out operations in the heart of Sinai.
Meanwhile, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, which is close to Netanyahu, asserted on 12 June 2014 that the Egyptian army depends on intelligence information provided by Israel in its operations against jihadists in Sinai.
General Amos Yadlin, former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Division, said the confluence of interests between Israel and the “moderate Sunni” governments represents an unprecedented opportunity for Israel to strengthen cooperation with them so as to enhance Israel’s strategic environment and help it cope with the significant challenges it faces.
In an article published by the Makor Rishon newspaper on Monday, Yadlin stressed that Israel has greatly benefited from cooperation with Egypt, Jordan and some countries in the Gulf, calling on Netanyahu’s government to take advantage of this opportunity.
However, Yadlin said that what could undermine such opportunity is the unstable situation in some Arab countries, as well as the deliberate embarrassment that Israel is causing the Arab ruling elites by rejecting the peace initiative that was launched by the late Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz.
Strategic and security cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel is growing at an unprecedented rate, Israel’s former National Security Adviser Uzi Arad said.
During his participation at the Energy 2015 Conference, Arad said that Israel takes advantage of Saudi Arabia’s role as a counterweight in the face of Iran which makes it play a central and effective role in Israel’s strategic plans.
Arad warned of the consequences of betting on the survival of an allied regime in Egypt, pointing out that Egypt is going through a very sensitive stage and things could turn upside down at any moment.
With regards to Jordan, Arad said: “About Jordan, we cross our fingers. No one knows what will happen there in five years. One must hope that things there will be stable. Who says the wave sweeping Iraq and Syria will not arrive to Jordan?”
Arad said the Palestinian Authority currently represents a partner for Israel in the face of many challenges.
Israel will not tolerate Iran turning into a state with nuclear capabilities, he stressed, pointing out that if the world and regional powers accept this, Israel will turn to the military option. He said: “For a long time now, there have been plans in Mossad about a situation in which another country around us has nuclear weapons. Such discussions begun in the 80s. Responses were prepared in advance. If you see a new submarine enter the port of Haifa, it does not take a genius to figure out what it signifies.”
Commenting on the relationship with Turkey, Arad said the most important research centre in Israel said the reality and the future of these relations do not bode well.
Israel is facing growing international isolation which, he warned, will affect the Israeli military and the country’s economic interests.
Arad noted that Israel benefits from the EU funded research projects, pointing out that they have strengthened the position of Israel as a great technological power.
He warned that the upcoming early elections in Israel will only contribute to the decline in Israel’s status.
Occupied Haifa – As Israel increases its economic stranglehold on 1948 Palestinians, its racist policies extended to banning them from raising chickens and growing potatoes. This was after the closure of clothes workshops, which were transferred to Jordan, and other similar actions.
As the economic persecution against Palestinians continues, the Israeli Agriculture Ministry recently decided to prevent 1948 Palestinians from raising chickens and thus producing eggs, claiming this department as an exclusive right for Jews in cooperative villages (moshav). Eggs produced by Palestinian establishments disappeared from the market in a matter of days and were replaced by Israeli eggs produced at moshavs (Israeli agricultural settlements) built on the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba, or the Catastrophe.
Authorities in Tel Aviv also issued a decree banning “Arabs” from growing potatoes, succumbing to the pressure of Israeli potato farmers. The authorities had discovered that growing potatoes is cheap and was an important source of income for Palestinians. These two steps are further proof of the extent of the occupation’s institutional racism.
Palestine is famous for having fertile land, rich in all sorts of plants used by Palestinians as food (such as thyme and mallow), but which are not known or eaten by Jews. This led the Israeli government to instruct its so-called environmental protection authority to prosecute “plant thieves.” It officially announced those plants as “protected species and those who pick them shall be sent to court.”
Environmental protection authorities started fining Palestinians who pick “protected plants.” In the meantime, Jewish traders, who just discovered the importance of such plants for Palestinians, began requesting necessary licenses from the Israeli Agriculture Ministry to grow them and sell them in Arab markets. Palestinians in the interior became a target of a lucrative and popular “Israeli” trade.
In the same context, occupation authorities found another channel to increase the economic stranglehold on Palestinians, with Dubek cigarettes company (the only Israeli cigarette company) announcing it would stop buying tobacco from Arab farmers. Tobacco is one of the main cash crops for Palestinians, especially in the Galilee, inside what is known as the green line. Thus, Israel would have destroyed one of the most important Arab crops in Palestine, and began importing tobacco from its Turkish ally.
Persisting in its economic war and in collaboration with Jordan, Israel recently shut down the small sewing and knitting factories in Galilee, the Triangle, and Negev, the main source of income for many Palestinian families. The occupation authorities plan to relocate them to Jordan, under the pretext of cheap labor. However, the move was rumored to be an attempt to prop up the fragile Jordanian economy, in addition to the occupation’s determination to cut off sources of income for 1948 Palestinians.
The economic stranglehold policies adopted by Israel resulted in the unemployment of one third of the workforce in Negev and Umm al-Fahm. It widened the gap between Palestinian and Israeli unemployment, with a 25 percent unemployment rate for Palestinians and 6.5 percent for Israelis. The same statistics indicated that half of Palestinian children in the 1948 territories currently live below the poverty line.
The six parties, which formed what is known as the “Nationalist and Leftist Parties Coalition”, said in a statement that the Jordanian government needed to fight radical thinking by cultural, economic and social means.
Six Jordanian political parties on Saturday warned the government of their country against joining an international coalition being formed by the United States against the militant Islamic State (IS) organization.
They said they opposed any foreign military intervention in the region, calling on Arab resistance movements to fight against what they described in their statement as “colonial plans.”
Jordan was one of ten Arab countries that attended a meeting in the western Saudi city of Jeddah on Friday on means of countering IS, which had overrun large territories in both Syria and Iraq.
In a communiqué issued following the meeting, the U.S. said each of the ten states were essential in the fight against IS, which seems to be getting close to Jordan too.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the radical movement was getting closer to his country’s eastern border, in an apparent reference to Jordan.
Syrian media accused Arab governments Tuesday of giving Washington prior agreement for military action against jihadists, with one daily calling for Damascus to form an alternative alliance with Moscow and Tehran.
The commentary comes ahead of talks in Saudi Arabia on Thursday between Secretary of State John Kerry and US regional allies on joint action to tackle the threat posed by the Islamic State group in both Syria and Iraq.
“Washington, which used the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction to enter the region militarily in 2003 and draw new geopolitical lines… is returning today under a new false pretext, the fight against terrorism,” said the Al-Baath newspaper.
“The Arabs meanwhile, are absent from every decision and are playing secondary roles,” it added.
The Baath party daily was referring to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 in which notoriously the alleged chemical and biological weapons that were used to justify the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime were never found.
Kerry is set to meet foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and the six Gulf Arab states in Saudi Arabia on Thursday.
The talks are part of US efforts to build a coalition to tackle ISIS, which has seized large tracts of territory in both Syria and Iraq, and carried out abuses including the decapitation of Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese and two American journalists.
On Sunday, the Arab League pledged to take “necessary measures” to confront ISIS, and said it was ready for “international cooperation on all fronts.”
But Syria, and its ally Iran, will not be present at the talks in Saudi Arabia, and Damascus fears efforts to tackle ISIS will involve air strikes on its territory without its permission.
State-run newspaper Al-Thawra warned: “The United States is setting the stage to bring new wars to the region.
“Its local partners are ready to carry out its orders without even knowing the details of the American plan,” it added.
Government daily Tishrin questioned why Kerry and US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel were coming to the region “when the Arab League has already given its prior agreement for a new war in the region organized by the United States.”
A newspaper called for the formation of an alternative “Russian-Iranian-Syrian coalition” against the jihadists to that being put together by Washington.
“Western and regional governments are excluding the nations that really want to fight terrorism,” it said, charging that the US-led coalition included nations that “support terrorism financially, military and logistically.”
Damascus considers all rebel groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad “terrorists” and has long accused the rebels’ supporters, particularly Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, of funding “terror.”
Similarly, critics opposed to US involvement in the conflict with ISIS have pointed out that Washington in partnership with its Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia, played a role in the formation and expansion of extremist groups like ISIS by arming, financing and politically empowering armed opposition groups in Syria.
On Monday, a study by the London-based small-arms research organization Conflict Armament Research revealed that ISIS jihadists appear to be using US military issue arms and weapons supplied to the so-called moderate rebels in Syria by Saudi Arabia.
A Jordanian family is accusing Israel of arresting and torturing their son to death, after detaining him during a protest, in Tel Aviv, in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
The family in Amman, Jordan said Wa’el Salim Mustafa, 39, told AFP news agency that he was detained by the Israeli police during a protest against the Israeli war on Gaza, was subject to extreme torture by Israeli interrogators, and died around a week ago, on the third day out the Muslim feast of al-Fitr.
His brother, Qoteiba, stated that the Israeli Authorities contacted the family asking them to come over and sign documents permitting Israeli doctors “to perform a needed surgery”, but once the family arrived in Tel Aviv, they were told he was dead.
Qoteiba added that the body of his brother showed clear marks of extreme torture, and also had a swollen face, swollen eye sockets, several broken ribs, and various cuts and bruises all over his body.
He left Jordan around 18 months ago, and travelled to Tel Aviv and Haifa, where we worked construction jobs.
Israel is refusing to provide further details on the issue, while the family has filed an official complaint against Israel and the Israeli Prison Administration, and is asking for another autopsy to reveal the causes of death.
A Jordanian security source said Jordan formed a committee to oversee the autopsy that would be performed at a Jordanian Hospital, adding that initial examination shows clear bruises, and fractures, in the head, chest and several other body parts.
It also revealed that a sharp blow to the head caused brain hemorrhage, that eventually led to death. An official report will be issued at a later stage.
Israel alleges Wa’el “fell during interrogation, and died later on”.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement in 1994. Despite the fact that all Israelis can travel to Jordan, most Jordanian males are not allowed to travel to Tel Aviv, and are forced to go through the Arab side of the border terminal with Jordan, thus, are “granted” access to the West Bank and not to historic Palestine, including Jerusalem.
A man is taken from his home by 20 armed, militarized police in fascist black uniforms. They break in through the doors and windows, rappel from the roof with ropes, storm the home where he lives with his wife and four children, in the dead of night.
They take him away, and no one hears from him for days, and then weeks, and then months. He isn’t charged with anything; for a long time he is simply disappeared. There is no official charge, but he is a known political activist, a writer, a lecturer.
This isn’t news, because the country is Jordan, the orders come from the US or from Israel, and the man is an Arab, a Palestinian.
***
I met Amer Jubran 13 years ago when he was living in the United States. He was arrested for the first time at a protest in Brookline, MA that he helped to organize against a yearly celebration of the colonization of Palestine called “Israel Day.” Police arrested him, broke up the demonstration, held him over night in jail with hand and leg shackles, and then charged him with assaulting a passerby. After a lengthy series of court hearings, the judge found the charges to be baseless. Information obtained in the course of the hearings revealed instead that the police had been in the pay of the Israel Day organizers, including the Israeli consulate. The police had been communicating with them about the protest–including details about individual protest organizers–and had more or less acted as agents of a foreign government.
At that time, I knew almost nothing about the history of Palestine. I attended Amer’s trial because the civil rights violations involved in his arrest were so egregious that his case required support from anyone who sincerely believed in basic political rights.
***
The bulk of Amer’s trial in Brookline took place in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001. The US had just declared an open-ended “war against terrorism,” and already news had begun to trickle out about mass detentions of Arab and Muslim men who were being held beyond the reach of any legal authority, detained indefinitely without access to fundamental rights of due process, and stories were starting to come out about the extensive use of torture.
And at the same time the US passed the Patriot Act and reorganized its security apparatus to create a new “Department of Homeland Security.” With it came new types of federal agents with expanded powers over both citizens and non-citizens; federal, state, and local police were increasingly networked with private agencies in JTTFs; ‘fusion centers’ emerged as nodes of uncontrolled ‘information sharing’ about everyone.
Those of us who were politically active at the time could see what was coming. I remember friends circulating a famous quote from Hanna Arendt:
“The first essential step in the road to total domination is to kill the juridical person in man. This was done, on the one hand, by putting certain categories of people outside the protection of the law and forcing at the same time, through the instrument of denationalization, the nontotalitarian world into recognition of lawlessness; it was done, on the other, by placing the concentration camp outside the normal penal system, and by selecting its inmates outside the normal judicial procedure in which a definite crime entails a predictable penalty.” (Origins of Totalitarianism)
***
We could see what was coming and those of us who cared got involved however we could.
I got to know Amer in the course of his trial and began to learn about Palestine: the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, the occupation of the remainder of Palestine in 1967, the continuing circumstances of racist oppression and land theft, not only in all of historic Palestine, but in the entire region surrounding it. To be Palestinian in Nazareth, or in Gaza, or in al Quds (also called Jerusalem), or Khalil (“Hebron”), is much the same as to be Palestinian in Amman (Jordan) or in Sabra and Shatila (Lebanon). The refugees fled murder on their land and it sought them out in the camps. To be Palestinian anywhere in historic Palestine is to be subject to arbitrary detention without trial (‘administrative detention’), and it’s the same in Amman or in Cairo.
***
I visited Khalil for the first time in 2003. What I saw there became for me an image of the entire region. Some 120,000 Palestinians live in the greater area of Khalil–the city and interconnected villages surrounding it. 400 zionist settlers live in a garrison called Kharsina. For their sake, a regime of total lockdown was imposed on all the Palestinians in the city and villages. All village entries and exits were blocked with boulders and other roadblocks. Curfew imposed. Children couldn’t attend school, elders couldn’t reach hospitals, no one could move goods. All this so that 400 settlers can feel ‘secure’ living on stolen land. This is the meaning of ‘security.’
And this is the image of the region. For the sake of less than 6 million highly privileged colonial-settlers, over 150 million Arabs in the surrounding region live under circumstances of political repression, foreign invasion, occupation, and poverty. No freedom of movement, no freedom of expression, no basic political rights. This is what it means when we say ‘for Israel’s security.’
***
I learned about Palestine and I became active along with Amer and others we knew in trying to speak for the cause of Palestine where we lived in the United States. Together with other Palestinians living in the area, Amer created an organization called the New England Committee to Defend Palestine.
We spoke of the unity of the Palestinian cause, of liberation for all of historic Palestine, for the rights of refugees to return to their homes.
Two days after the first demonstration of the NECDP, FBI and INS agents broke into Amer’s home in Rhode Island and demanded that he answer some questions. “Please the ears of this gentleman,” said the INS agent pointing to the FBI agent, “or you’ll rot in jail for fifty years.” Amer demanded his right to an attorney. They jailed him, at first without charges or access to a lawyer. We obtained a lawyer for Amer, but they refused to give any information to him when he called, and hung up on him. They held him that way for 17 days. It took an international campaign just to get him a bond hearing.
Eventually the INS (which became the ICE) manufactured immigration charges against Amer to justify–and at the same time conceal–the US government’s political persecution. They now claimed that the marriage through which he had obtained his green card had been fraudulent.
For over a year, we fought the case in hearings before the immigration court. The Department of Homeland Security devoted more than 12 FBI agents to “gathering information” on what was ostensibly an immigration matter. Agents visited members of Amer’s ex-wife’s family and tried to intimidate them into testifying against him. In some cases they showed pictures of Amer taken at demonstrations in the US and claimed that they were images from a “terrorist training camp” in Afghanistan. They tried to connect Amer with 9/11, and to suggest that people who didn’t fully cooperate might make themselves liable to prosecution in connection with “terrorism.”
We fought the case in the immigration court for more than a year. In the course of the proceedings, we submitted FOIA petitions that turned up evidence of widespread cooperation between local police and federal agents in monitoring us and other activists for political activities such as demonstrations, educational websites, and court solidarity. These included the following:
*Still photographs of Amer, his friends, witnesses and supporters taken inside the courtroom during his Brookline trial, and sent to the Boston Police
*A fax cover sheet documenting the communication of records between the Brookline Police and the FBI in July, 2003
*More than twelve video tapes made by the Boston police of pro-Palestine, anti-war, and civil liberties/immigrant rights rallies, which all found their way into a file concerning Amer Jubran
*A memo from the FBI refusing to grant the FOIA petition on the grounds that the subject was “under investigation.”
When it became clear that the immigration court was not a venue in which justice could be obtained, Amer took ‘voluntary departure’ and returned to Jordan in 2004.
***
Amer’s hearings were well attended by activists. The media closely followed his case, and there was considerable outrage that the government would use immigration proceedings to silence political speech.
A decade has passed. In that time, the arrest and prosecution of Arabs and Muslims for ‘terrorism’ based on speech–especially the defense of the rights of their peoples to resist invasion and occupation by the US or Israel–has been normalized in the framework of domestic security. There is openly a 1st Amendment exception for Arabs and Muslims. Torture and extrajudicial killing (assassination) are no longer dirty secrets, but official policy. Habeas corpus died with the Supreme Court decision in the Hamdi case; the body of policies and cases surrounding indefinite detention outside the reach of the law have now been codified in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, giving the US military the power to detain anyone without recourse to meaningful judicial oversight.
So that now, when 20 black-clad militarized police arrest a Palestinian in his home in Jordan for criticizing US and Israeli policies in the region–an arrest carried out almost certainly at the behest of the US–it just isn’t news. No journalist is interested in the story; no major media outlet will cover it.
***
Amer continues to be held in Jordan without charges, but has finally been allowed a visit by family, and his whereabouts are now known. His spirit remains strong.
Jordan recently passed legislation further criminalizing political speech as part of its “anti-terrorism” laws. The new amendments specifically criminalize activities that are harmful to Jordan’s relationship with foreign governments. Even before the passage of the new legislation, Jordan had already tried Mwaffaq Mahadin for “endangering relations with a foreign state” for speaking about Jordan’s security cooperation with the US on Al-Jazeera, so it isn’t hard to imagine how the new legislation will be applied. Over the past year, Amer has been sending out critical information and articles about Israeli, US and Jordanian cooperation in destabilizing Syria.
But at this point, it’s hardly even necessary to invent crimes and pass legislation. Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID)–the agency responsible for Amer’s arrest– is a black hole, accountable to no one, except possibly its paymaster, the US. One Jordanian lawyer told me, when I asked about the possibility of filing habeas corpus on Amer’s behalf, “There’s no such thing here. Our country is being maintained as a conduit to Guantanamo.”
Amer might sit indefinitely in detention without charges. Or he may be brought up at any time and charged with “terrorism” before the State Security Court, a rubber stamp court for the GID. If so, his lawyer might be told the charges a day or two before the sham trial, which then leads to inevitable conviction–a mere formality.
Only a concerted political campaign that gets widespread international attention can make any difference. It’s up to us to create enough visibility to make that possible.
Noah Cohen is active with the Amer Jubran Defense Campaign (freeamer.wordpress.com) and can be reached through the campaign at defense (at ) amerjubrandefense.org.
Amer Jubran has now been detained for over 2 months without charge. Until last week, he was being held incommunicado. Because Amer is a political dissident, we are gravely concerned that he may be tried with serious offenses based on his political speech under Jordan’s legal framework. If so, he would be brought before the State Security Court in Jordan soon. The State Security Court is an institution that has been widely criticized by human rights advocates as a tribunal that lacks any real judicial independence from the Mukhabarat (Jordanian Secret Police).
Today, we sent an open letter to the recently elected UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein of Jordan demanding that he address the atrocious human rights abuses in Jordan, citing Amer’s case.
We are asking all supporters to take action on Wednesday July 9th.
Please take a few minutes to do the following on July 9th:
1) Please forward the open letter to Prince Zeid to all your contacts/lists and post to Facebook;
2) Please write your own letter reiterating the points in the open letter (see below) and e-mail your letter to:
***Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner-Elect for Human Rights
e-mail: registry@ohchr.org
***Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour e-mail: info@pm.gov.jo
***Minister of Interior, Hussein Majali e-mail: info@moi.gov.jo
To UN High Commissioner-Elect for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein:
In light of your recent confirmation as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, we are writing now to urge you to turn your attention to your own country, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and its atrocious history of human rights abuses.
The current case of Amer Jubran highlights Jordan’s ongoing contempt for the most basic international standards of civil and political rights. Mr. Jubran, a Jordanian citizen, was arrested at his home on May 5, 2014 by agents of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) and continues to be detained without charges. For the first seven weeks of his detention, he was held incommunicado, without access to a lawyer or family. The international human rights organization Alkarama recently filed his case with the UN as an instance of arbitrary detention (http://en.alkarama.org/jordan/24-communiqu/1251-jordan-arbitrary-detention-of-human-rights-defender-amer-jubran-since-may-2014 ).
Mr. Jubran is an internationally known activist, speaker, and writer on Palestinian human rights and a critic of US and Israeli policies in the Arab world. All who know him and are familiar with his history recognize his arrest as a politically motivated silencing. We are therefore concerned that the amendments to Jordan’s “anti-terrorism” laws passed on June 1st criminalizing new categories of speech as “terrorism” may be applied in Mr. Jubran’s case. The legislation itself demonstrates the willingness of the Jordanian regime to exploit the label “terrorism” to further limit free speech, especially speech that is critical of the existing system of cooperation between Jordan, Israel and the United States. (See statement from Reporters without Borders: http://en.rsf.org/jordan-king-urged-to-repeal-draconian-16-06-2014,46423.html )
We further call attention to the use of the State Security Court as an instrument for political repression. As a direct extension of the executive branch of government, the State Security Court violates all standards of judicial independence. It is a rubber stamp for arrests and detentions carried out by the GID, which has a well-documented history of arbitrary detention and torture to silence political opposition (http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/jordan/report-2013). The collaboration between the GID and the State Security Court in human rights abuses has been specifically cited by Alkarama: “The methods of torture most commonly employed by GID officers are beatings, beatings with cables, ropes, plastic pipes, whips etc all over the body including the soles of the feet (falaqa), stress positions, sleep deprivation, injections that cause states of extreme anxiety, humiliation, threats of rape against the victim and members of his family, electroshock, prolonged isolation, etc. Abuse is more prevalent in the GID due to its close collaboration with the judges of the State Security Court. Incommunicado detention, which is itself a form of mental torture, is routinely extended for undetermined amounts of time.” (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/ngos/Alkarama_Jordan_HRC100_en.pdf)
In your acceptance speech at your confirmation as the UN High Commissioner by the General Assembly in June, you spoke of the commitment to push forward the issue of human rights on the Asian continent. Such a commitment can only be taken seriously if you are willing to begin at home. We ask you to stand behind your words by demanding the release of Amer Jubran from his unjust imprisonment by unaccountable agencies within the state of Jordan, and to use your position to end extensive human rights violations carried out by the GID and the State Security Court.
Sincerely,
The Amer Jubran Defense Campaign
National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Subcommittee
Defending Dissent Foundation
cc: Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour (Jordan)
Minister of Interior Hussein Majali (Jordan)
Minister of Justice Bassam Talhouni (Jordan)
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay
On 25 May, famous US actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“I have reflected and wanted to apologise for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding: “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”
But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of “hyperbole”? … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Aletho News 